Post-kidnap Pre-trial Events
Michael Donovan, uncle of Karen Matthews' boyfriend, was charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment and commiting acts tended to pervert the course of justice on 17 March 2008. Donovan appeared before Dewsbury magistrates on 18 March, and was remanded in custody. He appeared at Leeds Crown Court, via a video link from his prison cell, on 26 March. The provisional trial date was fixed for 11 November. He made an unsuccessful suicide attempt on April 6.
Craig Meehan was arrested on 2 April, on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, after police had examined computers in the home. He was remanded in custody, by Dewsbury Magistrates Court, at a hearing on 3 April charged with 11 offences of possessing indecent images of children. On 18 April 2008 Meehan pleaded not guilty, and elected to be tried by magistrate rather than a jury. On 16 September 2008, Meehan was convicted by Dewsbury Magistrates of 11 counts of possessing child pornography, relating to 49 images of level one, two, three and four found stored on his computer after it was seized by police from the house he lived in with the Matthewses, on Moorside Road, Dewsbury. On the same day, he was sentenced to 20 weeks imprisonment. He was released that day as he had spent longer on remand than the length of the sentence.
Karen Matthews was arrested on 6 April on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice. She was charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice, on 8 April. At a hearing on 5 September 2008, she was also charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment.
Amanda Hyett, Craig Meehan's sister, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender on 4 April 2008. Alice Meehan, mother of Craig Meehan and sister of Michael Donovan, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice, on 4 April. Both Amanda Hyett and Alice Meehan were released on police bail on 4 April but were rearrested with Meehan's sister Caroline, on 10 April and held on suspicion of perverting the course of justice before being released on bail. Hyett and Alice Meehan were later released without charge, although Hyett was jailed the following year in an unrelated conviction for benefit fraud.
The police announced on 8 April that they were investigating approaches to the Madeleine McCann fund for money to assist the search for Matthews.
Karen Matthews was remanded to face trial alongside Donovan in November 2008.
On 24 September 2008, it was reported that Craig Meehan had attempted suicide more than once and his mother had talked him out of it.
Read more about this topic: Kidnapping Of Shannon Matthews
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